Astronomy Biography

My interest in astronomy goes back nearly as far as I can remember. What may be unusual is that I can recall what ignited it.
I was either 6 or 7 years old and we
were at our neighbors lake cottage and they always went down to the shore
to watch the sunset over the lake. One evening we stayed out a little longer
as the first stars were appearing in the sky. This neighbor knew the constellations
and proceeded to point out the summer triangle and named the stars! Before
this, I simply assumed that new stars were out every night.

The pictures at the left and right are from the
out of print book The Golden Book of Science. The picture of the
big dipper spawned may nights of fruitless search for this object because
I was looking for a much smaller star field. But the searches were fun and
I definitely remember finding Orion during the winter months.

In the following years I actually tried to make my
own telescope out of a magnifying glass and a microscope eyepiece
without any real result. I received what I thought was a real
telescope around 1968, but it was a draw tube design with no mount
and magnified 40X. It was difficult to focus and at 40X, impossible
to hand hold. I don't think I even tried using it at night. But
during this time I read a very interesting book about the planets
and it said that Venus is often seen as a very bright "star" in the
western sky just after sunset. And fortunately for me at the time
there it was!

I eventually received my first genuine
astronomical telescope in 1970 as a Christmas present -- an
Edmund 3 inch reflector. Though this could hardly be
described as a good telescope, as a beginner scope it was
more than adequate but here was the great part: the
information that Edmund supplied with the scope was
outstanding. This was important because like many other
amateurs, I had no one to help me. Everything I learned was
either from a book or by experience. I cannot even begin to
describe the euphoria of actually finding Saturn for the
first time and I had done it all myself. In the coming
months I would eventually find Jupiter and Mars.

From
money earned from shoveling snow that winter, I bought a Nova Home
Planetarium. Though it was fun to use, one big disappointment was
that it was missing so many stars as I naturally compared it against
what I could see in my suburban sky. I would add many more stars by
carefully punching a very fine pin through the dome. The result was
very satisfying. The unit itself came with a couple of neat
accessories. First, an arrow pointer so you could literally point
to the "stars" on the ceiling. Second, it came with a secondary
projector with slides of various constellations that were perfectly
spaced so that you could show the image of the figure right on the
"sky" presumably just like a real planetarium show. Finally, there
was a small 16mm slide projector and they included 2 strips, one of
astronomical objects and the other a fictional account of a moon
landing. What was a "real" planetarium show? All I knew of that
was a small article in an encyclopedia and especially what I saw in
the James Dean movie, Rebel Without A Cause.

The
3 inch scope was very quickly replaced by my second telescope, 4.5
inch Tasco reflector. Though this wasn't a great jump in aperture
over the 3, it was still significant and I ended using this
telescope for several years. It had very good slow motion controls,
especially in Right Ascension, a rotatable tube and was still highly
portable, allowing quick movements around the yard to get at various
parts of the sky. I have thought of how different things would have
been had this been my first scope. The information that came with
the scope was woefully insufficient and in comparison to what came
with the Edmund, simply pitiful. And it makes me wonder how many
budding amateurs were unnecessarily handicapped by lack of good
information.

But though I badmouth the information that came
with this scope, the guide that came with it, A Key To The Worlds
Beyond, it did have a sample observers notebook page. I quickly
adopted its format and from then on every observation I made would
be recorded.

After nearly two years
and exhausting the list of possible objects, I fancied myself a pretty good
observer. I then ran across a book that had reprints of old Sky &Telescope
articles. The piece was "Visual Observing Programs For Amateurs" by David
Rosebrugh and it was my introduction to variable stars and the AAVSO. The
attraction was immediate. 1) It provided a way to do useful (scientific)
observing, and 2) it looked easy! In 1973 I received introductory material
from the AAVSO and with the chart of T Cephei (finder and 'B' chart) shown
in the article, I went for my first variable star. After trying to find
this very bright variable for many hours over several nights, I gave up.
The fields I saw in the telescope simply didn't match the chart. I made
a drawing of what I thought might be the field and filed it away.

Later, with my life savings of $300 dollars, I mail ordered a 10 inch (25cm)
scope from Essential Optics. It was a deal that seemed too good to be true
and almost was. Two years later (and a year after I thought my money was
gone) the scope arrived, and it turned out to be a wonderful instrument.
It seemed like this scope could find and see everything I went after, especially
the faint NGC objects. Not only was this telescope relatively big, but it
came with an 8X50 finder scope. The finding technique that worked for me time and
again was to use the Skalnate Pleso Atlas (limiting magnitude 7.5), which
had all the NGC objects already plotted, and had a striking similarity to
the view in the finder scope. Fortunately, this atlas also had variable
stars plotted; that is, if their maximum brightness was at least 7.5. There
I stumbled across the plot of T Cep, and it looked easy.

This time, after what seemed like only a few minutes,
I had positively found the variable! A few more minutes after identifying
suitable comparison stars, I had my first estimate. (Therefore, the total
time for my first variable estimate: 6 years. Consulting the drawing I made
earlier, I had in fact found T Cep those many years before.) The training
I received by finding all those NGC objects was time well spent since unwittingly
I had mastered the art of star hopping.

This was 1979 while I was still in college. I lived in Milwaukee and at
this time I became active in the Milwaukee
Astronomical Society (MAS) (thanks to accessibility of a car), met Gerry
Samolyk, and joined the AAVSO. The MAS
has a long history with the AAVSO, and many great variable star observers
worked from the MAS observatory. As a result, they had nearly the entire
catalog of variable star charts, the standard charts being genuine blue
prints. I made a few hundred estimates using the 12.5 inch telescopes using
setting circles, but never liked that finding technique. I preferred my
atlas, so I started the arduous task of making photocopies of sections of
this atlas to paste onto my charts.

Under Gerry Samolyk's directions, I also observed eclipsing binaries.
Though it was great doing eclipsers, it was even better doing them with
an experienced observer. Gerry's work is inspiring and he became my model
of what a variable star observer can be.

Eclipse of Beta Perseus -- Algol

I have observed the cataclysmic variables from the outset. I was under the
impression that these were objects that were supposed to be tackled by more
experienced observers, but HQ gave me the chart of U Gem in my starters
packet!

Mentoring

Though in one sense it was a triumph to have finally found that first
variable star without any help, it is also very sad because any experienced
variable star observer could have assured me that I had found the variable
and that alone could have been all the difference. I might have added six
years of variable star observing when I really had a lot of time to devote
to astronomy. What would have happened if I actually had a mentor? I never
lose sight of this and it was a driving force that made me want to mentor
new observers. But there is another factor. As proud as I am about learning
variable star observing by myself, I nearly stopped as soon as I began.
Even on the some of my first variable star estimates, I noticed a devastating
position angle effect which made stars seen at the right side of the field
brighter by a half a magnitude! My immediate conclusion: I could not observe
variables because I could never produce accurate estimates. I might have
given up, but unlike 6 years earlier, this time I was not alone. Gerry Samolyk
in an off-the-cuff remark mentioned a technique that many observers used
to produce accurate estimates, and it helped to almost completely alleviate
this problem.

Can I train anyone to be a variable star observer? No. An amateur has
to choose this and think it would be great to contribute to the science
of astronomy. The best I can hope for is to lend an ear, supply encouragement,
and maybe supply that one piece of information that might make all
the difference. The real secret to longevity in variable star observing
has almost nothing to do with contributing to science and almost everything
to do with liking (or even loving) it since we do this as a hobby. No one
will ever get that chance if they find it initially too difficult and little
hope that it will ever get better.